of emergency , dissolving the organizations. The suppression of the strikes also led to an increase in emigration. Mafia Ongoing government neglect in the late 19th century ultimately enabled the establishment of organized crime networks, commonly known as Cosa Nostra. The Mafia became an essential part of the social structure in the late 19th century because of the inability of the Italian state to impose its concept of law and its monopoly on violence in a peripheral region. The decline of feudal structures allowed a new middle class of violent peasant entrepreneurs to emerge who profited from the sale of baronial, Church, and common land and established a system of clientage over the peasantry. The government was forced to compromise with these "bourgeois mafiosi," who used violence to impose their law, manipulated the traditional feudal language, and acted as mediators between society and the state. Early 20th century and Fascist period The Sicilian mafia during the fascism was fought by the government of Benito Mussolini, who sent the island in 1924 the prefect Cesare Mori. These were gradually able to extend their influence across all sectors over much of the island (and many of its operatives also emigrated to other countries, particularly the United States). After Mussolini came to power in the 1920s, he launched a fierce crackdown on organized crime, but they recovered quickly following the Allied invasion of Sicily in July 1943, during World War II, once the Allies freed imprisoned Mafia leaders under the mistaken notion that they were political prisoners. Although Sicily fell to the Allied armies with relatively little fighting, the German and Italian forces escaped to the mainland largely intact. Control of Sicily gave the Allies a base from which to advance northward through Italy. Furthermore, it proved a valuable training ground for large-scale amphibious operations–lessons that would be essential for the invasion of Normandy. Post-war period Following some political agitation of the Sicilian Independence Movement, Sicily became an autonomous region in 1946, with its own Statute, under the new Italian constitution, with its own parliament and elected president. The latifundia (large feudal agricultural estates) were abolished by sweeping land reform mandating smaller farms in 1950–1962, funded from the Cassa per il Mezzogiorno, the Italian government's development Fund for the South (1950–1984). Cosa Nostra remained a secret criminal organization with a state-like structure until the 1970s. It utilized violence as an instrument of control